Blood Runs Cold
by l'heure bleu
Summary: One-Shot. Jacob is alone in the North, and unwittingly runs into a mysterious stranger with whom he just happens to have a connection with in more than one way...


**Author's Note: **This one-shot seems a little long to me, comparing it to "Shopping With Alice", anyway. This was originally an earlier chapter in "_Watch The Sky_", but I took it out, because I decided it was to cliché, and I didn't think people would appreciate it. I just didn't want Jake to feel lonely. After reading New Moon again, I don't completely hate him. Actually, I kinda love him, but he can't end up with Bella, because he's mine! Anyway, WAY of topic, here. Read. Enjoy. _Review_.

**Disclaimer: **I own _nothing._The Twilight series is the imaginative creative _genius_ of Stephenie Meyer.

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'**Blood Runs Cold'**

I strode painstakingly slowly through the endless rows of evergreens. The dull crunch of the hardened glaze of snow under my feet barely registered with me. Dully, I wondered how Bella was planning to survive here, in the _North_, when she already loathed the soft snowfalls and permanently drizzling rain of Forks. I brutally smacked myself for thinking about her again. Would I NEVER let it go?

_Focus, Jake._ I thought to myself soothingly. _You have to find a place to stay._ Wandering around in the Canadian wilderness day after day was far from enjoyable. I wasn't even quite sure where I was now, only that I was pretty far North ... And I was hungry! It was times like this when I missed the pack – or at the very least, Emily, more than ever.

I looked around hopelessly. I really did need somewhere to go. I could easily pass for twenty-four or twenty-five; no one would ask me why I was on my own … I only needed the _money. _And what the hell was with Canadian money, anyway? What was with all the weird colours – blues, pinks, and greens, and quotes and shiny patches … and the millions of odd, rusty coins? Ugh.

Absentmindedly, I kicked a fallen branch out of my way, just barely refusing the urge to morph into wolf form. I needed to separate myself from the pack, earn distance, quiet. I couldn't bother with listening to familiar worried voices begging me to come back in my head, and I was worried that becoming a wolf might set that off. I no longer belonged to the La Push pack, I wasn't going back. I no longer knew who Bella Swan was. She was probably a vampire by now, anyway. _Damn it_! I'd thought about her again.

Even though I had yet to feel cold or tired, I was excruciatingly hungry, and my clothes were dirty and shredded in places from me sleeping outside. I had to keep up pretences, after all, so I might as well give in to the hunger and find a hotel or something, I was sure I could scrounge enough money if I had to – I had emptied my savings account before leaving home.

I felt faintly relieved when I smelled it – relieved and anxious, unable to control the longing – the sweet smell of warm piles of pancakes and mounds of freshly fried bacon with mounds of scrambled eggs on the side. The warm aroma wafted toward me from a beaten trail lined with pebbles, making my mouth water uncontrollably. I scrambled along the beaten path a little way before coming to a halt in front of a quaint and cozy looking stone pile building … a minuscule Bed and Breakfast, by the smell and feel of the place. Smoke was billowing pleasantly from a chimney to the left of the roof. Sighing lustfully at the lovely fumes of breakfast seeping out from within, I paused to consider the options for only a moment before yanking open the door. I hoped that I had enough money to stay for a night, or at least some money for that glorious food…

I realized I was drooling and looked like an idiot and left those thoughts behind immediately.

Inside the front room of the tiny building was a wide, wood trimmed area with a long counter-top. There were photographs and paintings or wintry scenes all around, and a small fire was burning joyously in the left corner, filling a broad, double paned window just above it with wisps of frost in different shapes. The whole place had an incredible comfortable and secure atmosphere to it, and seemed friendly and inviting with its walls and features all different shades of soft yellow. I internally raged at myself for this, as it reminded me so much of Bella's tiny house.

Feeling unimaginably desperate to leave thoughts of Bella behind, I sauntered dejectedly over to the counter, drawing the eyes of one of the women who sat there, pouring over paperwork. Her face lit up slightly as she took me in – My cut off jeans, patches shredded out of them from hunting and sleeping while exposed to the elements, my bare chest, obscured by a large parka that I didn't need - I was sweating under it. I watched indifferently as she nudged her companion in a quick, subtle movement I realized she must think I couldn't see.

The instant the girl looked up from her novel to meet my gaze, two things happened simultaneously.

First, something shifted. I could see it in her eyes, and feel it within me, as if I was being spun around very quickly, and I couldn't look away from her, or I would go flying. The entire universe seemed to have moved; my muscles ached with the enormous effort it took to stay standing so far away from her, as if I were a planet locked into her gravitational pull, and struggling weakly to stay just a few meters away. When she smiled, the breath was knocked out of me. Her features lit up with some internal beacon of brilliant light, her small ocher eyes becoming shining spheres, gateways to happiness: hers, and mine. Her mouth curved into a perfect crescent-shaped line of cherry red. The sight of it sent jolts of joy and ecstasy through my heart. _I_ was happy that _she_ was happy. She must have felt our strange new connection, too, because she stood up, trance-like, still positively beaming with radiance that seemed to both warm me and send cold shivers down my spine.

Secondly, a small voice in the very back of my head, a forgotten part of my mind, growled fiercely. I could see it and smell it from every angle – This woman was unmistakably a _vampire_.

"Hello," She half-whispered breathlessly, so as not to shatter the silence and break the precious moment of pure delight that we were sharing. Her voice was soft and smooth and just slightly rough with a northern accent that made her voice all the more appealing, like swallowing honey with an undercurrent of something bitter, yet delicious. She was dreamlike; her brilliant golden eyes still boring into my own, as if to uncover my darkest secrets.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her companion staring back and forth between us in confusion.

"Hi." I answered shyly. I watched as she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in response, as if I had drawn her to me with a captivating remark, and she wanted to absorb it all. She leaned toward me in excitement.

"I'm Kate." She sighed, "May I help you with anything?" I knew I hadn't imagined her double meaning.

Taking in Kate's beautiful bright eyes and her shiny, tousled sandy blonde hair, her perfect features, all small and rounded, I noticed how strikingly beautiful she was, how _inhuman_ she was.

I had no doubt as to what had just happened.

And yet it horrified and shocked me to the core.

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**Author's Note: **Yes, that is Kate as in Katrina as in the Denali Coven. I just thought it would make a good twist, what with her being a vampire, Jacob being a werewolf, the Denali revenge thing, and the inevitable war that may just break out soon. He he. But now it's just an irrelevant one-shot, so ... we'll just have to see if little Jacob _survives_... Mwa ha ha!

Oh, and, P.S. Note the part where Jacob describes what Kate's doing: "her brilliant golden eyes still boring into my own, as if to uncover my darkest secrets." She DOES have a power similar to Edward's, you know. Hint hint. It may show up later in "Watch the Sky". Is it really "uncovering darkest secrets"? I don't know. We'll see...


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